CBS announced today that NCIS and Mark Harmon will be back for season 16. Is the news a surprise? Of course not, it is still the most-watched drama in the overnights. It even beats This Is Us and The Good Doctor and it has been on so long it is a bratty teenager. While their cases are about dead people, this show is far from being a corpse.
NCIS joins SEAL Team, SWAT, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, Mom and Murphy Brown on CBS’s 2018-2019 lineup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1p5GX1qhyg
We are less than two months away from the upfronts and CBS has decided to announce that two of their new dramas will be back for a second season. David Boreanaz’s SEAL Team and Shemar Moore’s SWAT join Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory on the schedule for next season.
While both shows have done well, they have done not great. I thought it was going to be an either or, so that makes me wonder what older show will be cancelled to make room for new shows. Will it be Scorpion? Criminal Minds? MacGyver, Madam Secretary? All have had sharp declines this season, so I think at least one of them is in trouble. Maybe more? Then there is Hawaii Five-0 that is in trouble because Alex O’Loughlin said that he was not planning on renewing his contract after this season ended. Therefore, that is a wait and see game because they cannot do the show without him. My gut thinks that they are going to lose an hour of comedy on Monday night. They just do not know how to promote sitcoms, so unless Chuck Lorre is behind it, it is destined to fail.
What do you think of these pickups? What CBS shows are ready to say goodbye to already?
CBS announced today who will play Murphy Brown’s son Avery and he is a show killer. Jake McDorman, who starred in Manhattan Love Story and Limitless, got the role. But he is as forgettable as his beard is not visible. Translation very forgettable.
I know that is a stupid reason not to like an actor, but that is why I cannot watch Jake’s shows. When I do watch his shows, I spend all my time trying to figure out if he has a beard or not. It is frustrating to me. Therefore, if CBS wants the show to succeed, they need to make him clean shaven.
What will his character be doing on the show? CBS says, “Murphy’s millennial journalist son who is following in his mother’s footsteps, perhaps too closely, and has his mother’s competitive spirit and quick wit.” I think it would be better if he was the opposite of his mom. What do you think of it all?
First off at 10p on NBC is Good Girls and it is so gooooooooooood! The drama follows three moms who are going through some financial difficulty, so they decide to rob a supermarket. They get away with…or so they think.
Beth (Christina Hendricks) is married with 4 kids and her husband (Matthew Lillard) owns a car dealership. He is having an affair with his secretary and blew most of their money on different things. When she finds out the latter two facts, she throws him out.
Her sister, Annie (Mae Whitman), is a single mom, who is a cashier at the supermarket. Her ex-boyfriend (Zach Gilford), who is married now, wants full custody of their teenage daughter. She doesn’t have the money for a lawyer.
Finally, there is Ruby (Retta), she is a waitress. Her daughter has renal disease and she can’t afford the medicine she desperately needs. Not even with her husband’s (Reno Wilson) salary as a security guard.
One day, Annie tells her friends how she has been studying how to rob her supermarket. When Beth has had it with her husband, they decide to go ahead and do it. They think that there is only $30,000 in the vault which is enough to cover their needs.
The day comes and the robbery goes off without a hitch. Only problem is there was more than $30,000 in the vault, a lot more. That is just a beginning of their problems. There’s a reason why there was more green in there and that reason wants his money back. Only thing is they don’t have all of it and now they have to find a way to get it back to him before he kills them.
Each week, they will run into a new problem and it gets better with each one. This a fast paced show with lots of twists and turns. It is a show where the crooks are the good girls and that is nice twist on the old story that has been told time and time again. One that will have you hooked by the opening credits.
Also at 10p, but over on Lifetime is UnREAL. It is back for a third season and this time it is bachlorette trying to find love on Everlasting.
But the scripted show is not just about the reality show, it is also about what goes on behind the scenes. Which is a lot more interesting than what goes on in front of the camera.
The season starts off several months after the season 2 finale. Rachel (Shiri Appleby) has been trying to deal with all of her many issues in a retreat like place, and wants nothing to do with the show. Quinn (Constance Zimmer) doesn’t care, all she cares about is saving her show. It appears that Everlasting Love is in its way out because of all their scandals. Quinn needs Rachel, so she convinces her to come back. She does.
Rachel is assigned to take care of the Bachelorette. Serena (Caitlin FitzGerald) is a smart business woman who is not going to put up with the same crap the men did. She thinks she can outsmart Quinn, but we all no one can do that. Even though Quinn is not on her game like she used to be.
The head of the network is over Quinn and Madison (Genevieve Buechner) sees her downfall as a way to move up in he world. She teams with the network head to bring down Quinn, what happens when Quinn finds out?
There is also Chet and he has a new girlfriend this season. Will Crystal (Kassandra Clementi) keep him out of trouble? Is the new Rachel going to stay this way or will she retreat back to her old self? Will Quinn lose the show? All of that and bunch of sexy men trying to win the heart of one woman. There will be fights, the slicing off of a man bun, sex, drugs, drinking, bets and did I mention sex? Forget those other dating shows, this is the one you need to be watching.
Over at 9p but on A&E is the 2-hour special Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre. On November 18, 1978, 918 members of The People’s Temple died, most of them drank Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide. People wondered why so many would end their life and their children’s lives like that and tonight’s special takes a look at their leader Jim Jones.
Jim Jones was not the only one in charge of his temple, the women in his life helped play a part in it too. How much of a part did his wife Marceline Jones and mistresses Carolyn Layton, Maria Katsaris and Annie Moore play in ending it all, that is something that is looked at in the special.
The episode tells their story with archival video and interviews with survivors of the cult including his natural son Jim Jones Jr.
Had Jones never left San Fransisco for Jonestown, the People’s Temple would have been remembered for their activism. Instead they are known for “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
If you are not familiar with Jonestown and the People’s Temple, tonight’s episode is a good starter course. It is the most interesting cult story few hundred years. It is because of them that I am obsessed with cults. It is why I took a course on cults in college. In other words, you want to check this out.
Finally at 9:30p on CBS is the new sitcom Living Biblically. Chip’s (Jay R. Ferguson) best friend just died suddenly and he is not handling his death very well. To makes things even more complicated his wife (Lindsey Kraft) tells him she is pregnant. That is not the only thing he his told that causes him to rethink his life. His friend’s mother tells Chip her son went to hell because he stopped going to church.
All of those things combined cause him to reevaluate his life and his decides he is going to live by the words of the Bible. Sounds easy, but in 2018 it is not. Luckily, he has Father Gene (Ian Gomez) and Rabbi Ableman (David Krumholtz) helping out with some of the lessons from the good book. Wait until they get to the one about worshiping idol Gds like cell phones.
But they are not only people helping him, so are the people at his job where he writes movies reviews. When his boss (Camryn Manheim) hears about his new path, she tells him to write a column about his year of living biblically.
Each week is a new lesson and laughs for us. Even though the show will make us think, we also know there is no way we would ever do it. Which makes it even funnier.
Last month, CBS announced that they were bringing back Murphy Brown in the fall for 13 episodes, but they did not say who would be back besides Candice Bergen. Today, they did and Faith Ford (Corky Sherwood), Joe Regalbuto (Frank Fontana) and Grant Shaud (Miles Silverberg) will all reprise their roles on the revival.
While we see those four again, as of now we will not see them joined by Charles Kimbrough (Jim Dial), who turns 82 in May. Also not part of the revival is Robert Pastorelli (Eldin), who passed away in 2004. No word if Scott Bakula will sneak over to the show on a break from NCIS: NoLa to play her ex and Avery’s dad. Since I have read reports that her son plays a big part on it, I am sure they will find a way.
Murphy Brown celebrates it 30th anniversary this year, so the fact that they got 4 of the originals to return to the sitcom is pretty impressive. Plus, their return makes me want to watch it now!
Now that we know who is back and who isn’t, all we need is for Mike Pence to pick a fight with Murphy Brown! How absolutely fabulous would that be? I am sure Donald Trump will find a way to Tweet his distaste for the show, but then again what TV show, that isn’t on Fox News, does he not have a problem with?
